Saturday, 8 July 2017

Warwickshire Open Studios, 2017 - 5

My last post on Warwickshire Open Studios, 2017 which was a particularly good one this year.

Angela Gordon-Webb, painting:

Gordon-Webb is a landscape and portrait painter who lives and works in Leamington Spa.

Alfreda McHale, installation:
From the artisti's website:'McHale's practice is informed by the domestic environment, and by the fact of being a woman artist. Her background in medicine and her earlier career as a midwife have accentuated the interest in female experience in her artistic production.McHale's emphasis on the feminine and the domestic means that she tends to use unconventional materials in her work; these are mainly materials which derive from the feminine domestic sphere. Using the Found Object discovered within the home, is often the starting-point for her choice and use of materials in her installations, prompting her audience to rethink their pre-conceptions of domestic life and to reconnect with their own memories of childhood in the home. McHale wears her feminism lightly, but it does underpin her artistic re-evaluation of women's roles in modern society, and their important but often overlooked knowledge and experience'.

The board outside the artist's house prepared us for the theme of the installation which was to be found in the front room. A heavy, velvet curtain invited us to open it